Tag Archives: Simplify your Gym Time

A theme of the Warrior Scholar lifestyle is simplicity. Simplifying your life. Focusing on the things in your life that are important, and letting go of the things that are not. Stop wasting time on trivial things or activities that are draining of energy with little reward or benefit for you.

Back to the Basics

This can be applied to physical fitness training. Simplify and focus your workouts. When creating a workout plan, always focus on your core functional lifts/activities. Everyday you exercise; you should be selecting at least one core functional lift and one core functional cardio activity. These should be the building blocks of all workouts.

If you spent your time just doing these complex functional lifts, you would see massive improvements and gains in your strength, real world activities, and overall health. We need to get away from the auxiliary isolation lifts and focus on the lifts that provide us with the most benefit. Below the Core lifts are laid out with instructional videos.

My challenge to the reader is to simplify your workout. Take one or two Core Lifts and one Core Cardio, and do them everyday. When in doubt about what to do in the gym, start with the basics, not the pecdec machine. Quit wasting your time. Do 150 pull-ups not 150 arm curls. Make it easy on yourself. Focus on the important core lifts and shuck the rest.

I personally love doing the core lifts first then moving into HIIT training or doing the core lifts in conjunction with my cardio to focus on high intensity work. For example: 10 back squats with 250 meters of rowing. One minute rest between sets. 10 rounds.

Here is a full week plan. (All I did was pick one, sometimes two core lifts and one core cardio for everyday)

Before attempting any sort of weight with the lifts, make sure to work and rework your technique with light or no weight. Watch videos online. Practice with free form. Have a friend who is knowledgeable help you train. You can’t train if you get hurt, so make sure to use the appropriate form, and keep yourself in the game.

Bring a level of simplicity into your workout. Focus on the most important aspects of training. Keep your workouts basic. Train your core lifts and core cardio.

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